VII. Damages
1. Without waiving the legal requirements, Schneider is only obliged to pay damages due to the breach of obligations resulting from the contract with the customer, the contractual negotiations carried on with the customer or the business relation with the customer in accordance with the following provisions. These provisions apply equally for all of Schneider’s obligations to reimburse expenses.
a) The customer is required in the first instance to rely on other remedies and can only claim damages in the event of a continuing deficiency. The customer cannot claim damages as an alternative to other remedies.
b) Schneider is not liable for the conduct of suppliers, subcontractors, carriers or freight-forwarders, for damages to which the customer has contributed or for the consequences of customer interference with the security and/or safety technology of the delivered goods. Schneider is not liable if the contract cannot be performed as agreed at the time of its formation due to subsequent statutory or sovereign measures. Neither is Schneider liable for impediments which occur, as a consequence of natural or political events, acts of state, industrial disputes, sabotage, accidents, terrorism, biological, physical or chemical processes or comparable circumstances and which cannot be controlled by Schneider with reasonable means. Moreover, Schneider is only liable to the extent that the customer proves that the executive bodies or members of staff of Schneider have deliberately or negligently breached contractual obligations owed to the customer.
c) In the event of liability, Schneider will compensate within the limits of lit. d) the losses of the customer to the extent that the customer proves that he has suffered an unavoidable loss caused by the breach of obligations owed to the customer by Schneider and foreseeable to Schneider, at the time of the formation of the contract in respect of the occurrence of the loss and its amount. Moreover, the customer is required to mitigate his loss as soon as a breach of contract is or ought to be known.
d) Schneider is not liable for loss of profit or damage to reputation. Moreover, the amount of damages for late or non-existent delivery is limited to 0.5 per cent for each full week of delay, up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the net purchase price of the goods delivered late or not at all, and in case of remedies because of delivery of non-conforming goods and/or goods with a deficiency in title is limited to an amount of 200 per cent of the net purchase price of goods affected. However, this subparagraph does not apply to injury of life, body or health, to intentional concealment of the non-conformity or deficiency in title of the goods and to breaches of contractual obligations due to intentional harm or gross negligence.
e) For breach of contractual, pre-contractual or obligations resulting from the business relation owed to the customer, Schneider is obliged to pay damages exclusively in accordance with the provisions of these International Conditions of Sale. Any recourse to concurrent bases of claim, in particular of a non-contractual nature, is excluded. Equally excluded is any recourse against Schneider’s company organs, employees, servants, members of staff, representatives and/or those employed by Schneider in the performance of his obligations on grounds of breach of contractual obligations owed by Schneider.
2. Irrespective of continuing legal or contractual claims the customer is obliged to pay damages to Schneider as follows:
a) In the event of delay in payment, the customer will pay a lump sum of EUR 50.00, the costs of arbitral, judicial and extra-judicial means and proceedings, usual and accruing within the country and abroad, as well as (without evidence being necessary) interest at the rate applicable in 33649 Bielefeld/Germany for unsecured short-term loans in the agreed currency, at least however interest at 9 per-cent points over the base rate of the German Federal Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank). .
b) In the case of a late taking delivery of the goods by the customer by more than two (2) weeks, Schneider is entitled to claim damages without evidence being necessary of 5 per cent of the value of the goods to be delivered. In the case of a late taking delivery of the goods by the customer by more than six (6) weeks or an entire failure to take delivery as well as in the event of non-delivery due to a breach of contract by the customer, Schneider is entitled to claim damages without evidence being necessary of 20 per cent of the value of the goods to be delivered.
c) If the contract has been avoided by the customer without justification, Schneider is entitled, insofar as he consents to the avoidance, to claim damages without evidence being necessary in the amount of 20 per cent of the value of the goods to be delivered.
3. Within the bounds of what is legally possible as well as within what is usual in the trade, the customer is in his commercial relationships with his clients obliged to limit his liability both in principle and in amount.
